2015 / 19:50 – 20:10 [gmt] RTVS / Live from Bratislava

THE SYMPHONY OF ENERGIES- HOMAGE TO STEAM

THE SYMPHONY OF ENERGIES- HOMAGE TO STEAM:If we could only count how many important inventions, discoveries or let´s call it „inventive impulses in human´s knowledge and cognition“ there have been in the world´s history. And the one gets chills when we imagine the next large number of such impulses, awaiting us in the near future. We would hardly believe that in whole history of the human kind and up to the 18th century nobody would doubt about the pot-lid „jumping“ while the soup is being cooked. Thanks to the inventions, the cauldron could have been closed and his vent regulated in a way that enabled steam flow, as intended by the constructor. The „governance“ over the elements of the nature and their regulation in a requested direction of further development always belonged to obsessions of the human being.

Today the railway is being perceived as a common part of our everyday life. We use it to visit our friends and relatives, to get to work or to enjoy trips. The railway´s atmosphere has become a natural experience which we often only perceive as an essential need and facility to reach the desired destination. However, only few can deny the fact that using train as a transport vehicle has undoubtedly got its own special kind of magic which is totally different from the other ways of „moving along the space.“ Thanks to the railway, we can experience various atmospheres and environments we are confronted with: we can hear the noise of „Babylon speeches“ in the station´s entrance hall, listen to the station´s broadcast and the breaks´ squeaking while waiting on the train´s platform, hear the train with its never ending monotone sound, enjoy the silence of solitude in the coupé or talk to a stranger sitting next to you; doesn´t matter if it´s a calm friendly dialogue or a passionate debate. And not last but least we hear water splashing in the train´s wash basins with their automatized systems – either working properly or non-functioning; followed by loud music in the head set of the fellow passenger and the phone calls we unwillingly have to listen to…….

The railway is a place of innumerous crossroads of people, machines and human destinies – a place full of different energies that actually never sleeps. Even in the night when all motion stops, we can still hear the sound of the high voltage cables whirring.

In an incredibly short time, the people´s regulation of the steam flow enabled the beginning of the new inventions era. These brand new gadgets have changed our world in a way we have never experienced before. Understanding one single physical law resulted into an „avalanche“ of inventions in mechanics and also significantly enhanced something what we call „synthetic thinking.“ Within one century, the conditions for the development of almost all essential technical „highlights“ were prepared in order for the inventions to be in the following 20th century continually combined, upgraded, simplified, minimized in size, accelerated and improved in their efficiency. In comparison to the wheel, the working principle of which can be even today considered as an absolute basis and condition for a problem free functioning of an uncountable number of systems, the steam today does not so far „enjoy“ such high „position“ in the importance ranking, as it „enjoyed“ 100 years ago. Indeed, we can find it in irons, coffee machines or in nuclear power plants. But the era, when steam was a basic prerequisite for work of the most automatized machines and engines, already belongs to the past. Nevertheless, the working principles we learned to use thanks to the steam, have successfully been transformed into much more sophisticated and complex ones. Today we can without any doubt say that without steam, we wouldn´t even have such a technical „highlight“ as e.g. the I-Phone.